In a recent interview, Gen. Frank McKenzie, former U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander, expressed concern over the growing seriousness of the threat that ISIS poses to the U.S. homeland.
According to McKenzie, this escalation is a direct result of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy decisions.
During a Sunday interview on ABC News’ “This Week” with Martha Raddatz, McKenzie discussed the recent ISIS terrorist attack in Moscow.
“General, your CENTCOM successor, General Michael Kurilla, said just days before the Moscow attack that ISIS-K, quote, ‘retains the capability and will to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months and with little or no warning’. What’s your confidence in that intelligence?”
“I think General Kurilla is spot on with that assessment. Here’s the problem. Again, we go back to ISIS-K. If you can keep pressure on them that they’re in their homeland and their base, it makes it hard for them to conduct these types of attacks.” McKenzie said in response.
“Unfortunately, we no longer place that pressure on them, so they’re free to gain strength, they’re free to plan, they’re free to coordinate and to outreach that hit us in our homelands. So, you might as well be playing an away game than a home game. We’ve chosen to play a home game.” he continued.
“Laving 2,500 troops, along with our NATO partners, who would have left 4,000 or 5,000 troops, we would have been able to continue to work against ISIS, which was the principal reason we’re in Afghanistan, to prevent attacks in our homeland. I think we might be in a different place now. I think we might actually be safer than we are.” he added.
“And so, I think the threat is growing. It’s began to grow as soon as we left Afghanistan, took pressure off ISIS-K. So think we should expect further attempts of this nature against the United States as well as our partners and other nations abroad. I think this is inevitable.” he concluded later in the discussion.
